CCTV's Greatest Hits:
Being a part of the Loss Prevention and Security team at Junes was the cushiest job Takeda Kosuke had ever had. The pay was good, and all he had to do was keep watch over the CCTV feeds and call in a heads up to the floor staff if he caught anyone trying to shoplift.
(He never bothered calling in any shifty behaviour in the grocery section. Junes wasn't going to crash and burn because some kid nicked a chocolate bar.)
The downside to the job was that, at the end of the day, it was a mind-numbingly boring way to spend his time.
His little security office had a bunch of small monitors so all the feeds could have a live display somewhere, and two larger screens. One of them was solely dedicated to feeds from the electronics department; that was where all the big ticket items were, and Kosuke needed to be ready to point fingers if anything there got damaged or swiped if he wanted to keep his job. He tended to scroll through the other feeds at random on the second screen, pausing occasionally to watch mute arguments or people just being weird in general.
He needed to get his kicks somehow, or he'd fall asleep.
#
April brought strange deaths to Inaba.
For the housewives it was a fruitful new source of gossip; for Kosuke it meant that shopper numbers were fluctuating.
Each day was more of the same, right up until they wasn't.
Kosuke had just returned to his chair after making himself a fresh cup of coffee when he caught a glimpse of something unfathomable on the electronics department feed.
The Hanamura kid was checking out the flat screen TVs with two other teens who must've been classmates of his. Nothing strange there. But then his male companion walked up to one of the display TVs and just… shoved his hand straight into it.
Kosuke nearly spilled his coffee all over the monitors as he slammed his cup down, hurrying to magnify the feed as much as he could. Hanamura and the girl seemed to be panicking, which was the only reasonable response to something as ludicrous and impossible as whatever the hell was happening right then.
(He never thought he would say this but Kosuke would honestly have preferred it if the kid had punched a hole in the screen instead. At least that was explainable. At least that would make sense.)
While he dithered over whether or not to call one of the on-floor supervisors, and what he would even say to them that didn't sound crazy, his conundrum was, in a manner of speaking, solved for him.
If you could call three teenagers tumbling into a TV and disappearing from this apparent reality a solution.
Screw that news announcer's death, Kosuke was suddenly a whole lot more worried about having perhaps become an eye-witness to the strangest missing persons' case the world had ever seen.
His fingers itched to edit the footage, to erase that little blip of time from the feed and hopefully from his mind too, but he refrained. That sort of thing was likely to get him fired on the spot if anyone else noticed his tampering, and finding another job would be such a pain.
Instead he resigned himself to keeping an extra close eye on the feed and hoping they would return in a timely fashion.
#
It was overly optimistic of him to hope that it had been a one-time thing. If they had just never come back then, footage aside, Kosuke could've pretended that he'd just been over-tired and day-dreamed the entire incident.
The Heavens were not smiling upon Takeda Kosuke this year.
The lifeline was a novel idea, although if the rope hadn't snapped the moment the girl gave it an experimental tug it would've been a very difficult scene to explain if anyone chanced upon her. Also, it was pretty shitty to drag her with them if they were just going to make her stand watch.
Whatever she had experienced on the other side hadn't filled her with confidence about this second expedition. After the rope snapped she tried going in after them but found she couldn't - vindication! Kosuke would never admit it out loud but he might've tried it out himself on the way home that first day, only to be firmly rebuffed by the unyielding reality of a normal TV screen - and so dedicated herself to nervous pacing instead.
Honestly she was lucky barely any customers came her way. Eventually someone would have asked if she was okay, and if Kosuke were in her shoes he wasn't sure he'd be able to resist blurting out exactly what was upsetting him, which was definitely the wrong move in a scenario like this.
She seemed so distressed that he actually felt a little guilty just sitting back and watching things play out, but going down to check on her sounded like a terrible idea. All he could do was watch over her from his office until the boys returned.
If they weren't back by closing time, Kosuke would check in on her.
(Thankfully that proved unnecessary. He really didn't know what he would've said to her anyway.)
#
Has Hanamura forgotten we have security cameras? Kosuke wondered to himself after a dozen or so days of watching their bizarre comings and goings.
Their little group was doing a reasonable job of not drawing attention to themselves on the shop floor, at least, but that was some real lack of concern for future consequences. You'd think he might have learnt a thing or two from the Food Court Incident™, but he obviously hadn't gotten any further than 'waving swords around in public spaces is a bad idea.'
They were just lucky Kosuke wasn't willing to subject himself to the humiliation he envisioned if he tried reporting their trips to anyone. He didn't even know who he would tell. Technically they weren't breaking any laws (aside from the known laws of the universe that is) or committing crimes. At most they were probably just making that one TV screen pretty smudged with hand prints, if they were even making actual contact with the screen at all. And since it wasn't Kosuke's job to keep their displays clean it really wasn't any of his concern.
It wasn't any of his concern, but he always kept an eye out to make sure they made it back.
#
Kosuke wheezed pathetically as his mouthful of water went down the wrong pipe.
Maybe he was just lying to himself, but he liked to think that he'd become rather accustomed to watching the slowly expanding group of dimension travelling teenage misfits parade in and out of the TV.
Only…
Was that Risette they were hauling out of the screen this time?
Kosuke definitely wasn't paid enough for this.
#
Kosuke wasn't sure whether to be relieved or extra confused by the latest addition to the group.
Somewhere along the line the famed Detective Prince seemed to have joined forces with Hanamura's weird little gang.
Was that good, from a law enforcement perspective? Conversely, was it really really bad?
Either way, Kosuke liked to think that the kid could keep the others in line. He still had no real idea what they were doing in there, didn't think he really wanted to know at this point, but adding more responsible people to their line-up could only be a good thing.
Right?
#
Now, Kosuke didn't consider himself an uncharitable person. He wasn't overly spiteful and he kept his negativity to himself in the dark corners of his mind.
But.
He couldn't say he was sad to see Hanamura's pale-haired friend leaving Inaba.
It had come to Kosuke's attention at some point that the boy was the ring-leader of sorts of their odd group, being the first to discover the portal and leading their expeditions.
With him gone, there was finally a light on the horizon. With him gone, Kosuke could breathe easier knowing that, hopefully, there would be no more dimension-hopping while he was on the clock.
The past year had been stressful in the most unbelievable ways, and for all he used to complain about the mundane day-to-day of his job Kosuke found himself now craving the uninteresting footage of a normal department store where supernatural things didn't occur.
Give him back the silent lovers' spats, the dropped egg cartons, the lost children.
Give him back the reality that made sense.
Goodbye, strange boy, and take your hell portal with you when you go.